Conventionally, a method for pressurized bonding has been used to manufacture bonded laminated material by pressurizing and bonding material that is made from laminated membranes that are transported into opposing parts of a pressurizing device for pressurized bonding. This technology also has recently been used for manufacturing a membrane-electrode assembly (hereafter, “MEA”) for a polymer electrolyte fuel cell, which assembly is manufactured by laminating and bonding solid polymer membranes, fuel electrode membranes, and air electrode membranes.
To manufacture the bonded laminated material by the above method, a method for fixing material to be laminated is proposed wherein 1) the material to be laminated is placed on a flexible sheet that is attached to a metal frame for fixing the sheet, 2) another frame for fixing the sheet, the frame having a flexible sheet and an annular packing, is placed over the metal frame for fixing the sheet, and 3) air is discharged from a sealed chamber that is formed by these elements given above to depressurize the chamber and to fix the bonded material (for example, Patent documents 1 and 2).
Also, to transport the jig that fixes the material to be laminated while keeping the inside of the jig under depressurized conditions by suctioning and to continuously pressurize it are proposed (for example, Patent documents 3-5). Also, a roller-type press is proposed as a pressurizing device (Patent document 6).